Nov 18, 2009 More

~Eva
Canada Dry is just a ginger ale soda. It has no affiliation with beer that I know of. Your letter amused me greatly. ;) By your logic though, all soda should look like beer because they're in aluminum cans.
I don't know if I can recieve picture attachments, I think you'll have to send me one to test it out.
I fell down last week and scraped my knee on the pavement. I thought it was funny because you had that experience where you couldn't kneel to pray very well because you hurt your knee. It's scabbed over now and I can kneel on it okay, but it was hurting for the first couple of days. :P

~Jessie
:D If you can, just give mom the mac makeup and tile and have her put it in my top dresser drawers.

~Mom
My estimated leave date is January 4th. It may vary from that, but it's most likely going to be the first week of January unless I get visa issues.
The first aid kit that I was going to bring had all the normall stuff in it, but I also added a bug bite treatment stick that we bought in the camping section, and I added a bunch of antihistime pills and decongestant pills in case I get a bit sick. I was thinking that I should probably have some women vitamin supplements too, because it may be hard to get calcium and other stuff in the Philippines. Neosporin would be nice too. :)

~Dad
:) Getting dear elder.com letters has meant a lot to me! It doesn't matter if you send real letters or not.

~Emily
I want to see pictures of you in your new dresses! :)

~Everyone
Kumusta!!
(If anyone knows 2tricks email, go ahead and tell me. The one I have right now is the one he posted on facebook.)
This has been my second week here in the MTC. Here's a little backround information I never really got around to last week. I have 4 Elders in my district. I'm the only Sister in my district, so I'm a "solo" sister. I can either be with my residence hall companion, Sister Dustin, or be with a companionship of Elders from my district. Sister Dustin's district is ginormous, with 19 Elders and herself. They've been fun to have around in the hallways so we can practice Cebuano together. They've been here for 8 weeks already, so they're leaving next week. I'll probably be reassigned to another companion. :(
I'll refer to my district as Elder A, Tr, Ta, and B. :)

Most of the Cebuano speakers are going to the Cebu mission in the Philippines. A few are going to Tacloban. This week I heard that Cebuano isn't used as much in Tacloban as in Cebu. We're probably going to have to learn Tagalog and another dialect called Warai warai. So I started getting all worried, until Sister Dustin reminded me that the Lord is on my side and all things are possible. :)

Yesterday, Elder A went to the hospital. He was having some problems with his digestive system. :( We're waiting to see how he is.

We're going to the temple today! I'm probably going to say that in every email because we go to the temple the same day that I get to email home. ;)

It was a bit hard at first to always be studying and always on the go, but now I have a desire to always be learning, and there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to read the Book of Mormon and Preach My Gospel. Of course there's the language to learn as well. This week our teaching appointment is to go door to door and speak Cebuano to learn about people's families. Afterwards, we'll be teaching the first lesson about the Restoration of the Gospel.

If you guys have any questions, send them to me at Dearelder.com, and I'll try to answer them in the weekly mail. I get the letters pretty much the same day that you send them. :) If you don't know my mission information try asking my sister who's in charge of forwarding the emails from me. :)

I love you all! But I only have a minute or so left on my email timer, so I'm heading off. Bye byeee! <3

Nov 18, 2009

Kumusta!

The MTC is amazing! The first couple of days were really intense, but I'm much more into the schedule now. Every moment is scheduled, and there is so much to do.

I've been feeling so uplifted that everything just confirms to me that I need to be here.

I've learned a bunch of Cebuano already, but there is SO much to learn.
I'm the only sister missionary in my district, so I have to hang out with Elders all the time during class. I have a wonder sister companion named Sister Dustin in the residence hall. We get to hang out more during P-day and Sunday, which are awesome.

We get to go to the temple today, and I'm so excited. It feels like so long ago that I was reporting to the MTC and being shuffled around. So much has been packed into every day.

We're doing our first teaching assignment tomorrow, and I'm scared out of my mind. x_x We're going to be greeting them in Cebuano and then teaching the lesson about the Restoration of the Church in English.

I have to go now, I spent most of my time emailing family. Remember if you want to send me a letter, Dearelder.com is THE way to go. It's SO AMAZING. I'm lucky that I'm able to be on a mission with that website available to me.

Love you all! Bye bye~

Julie's Contact Info

Julie Ann Loveland
MTC Mailbox # 152
PHI-TAC 0107
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793

The 0107 means that she will probably be leaving the Provo MTC on January 7th.

Here's a couple of things that the MTC has told us (her family members) and in case any of you Julie fans are over-zealous, it might be good for you to know these things too. So, here ya go:

Please note the following items:

1. Your missionary's service began today. Please do not arrange or request visits with your missionary, including meetings at the temple or in proximity to the MTC.

2. All missionary mail must come through the US Mail or commercial delivery services. Hand delivered items will NOT be accepted. Do not send pizzas, fast foods, ice-cream, or any items that will spoil if they are not refrigerated within 24 hours. Missionaries are not called out of class to receive packages, nor do they have access to a refrigerator.

3. Communicate with your missionary weekly through letters sent to the above address or through the email account that the missionary will set up within the first two weeks. This account is to be used by immediate family only. Telephone calls for missionaries cannot be accepted. Your missionary will correspond with you on his/her first preparation day.

4. Families and friends should not plan to visit missionaries departing to their field of labor at the airport or MTC.

Should you need to communicate with the MTC call 801-422-2602.

DearElder.com

Hi everyone!~

This is going to be the last post from me directly because I am leaving for the MTC early tomorrow morning.
I'm going to do my best to try to correspond with everyone, but I have a limited amount of time to do so.  If you can find the time, please go ahead and send me an email at the address I gave on Facebook.  (You may want to wait two days or so which would give me time to set it all up.)

I also wanted to let everyone know that DearElder.com is a GREAT resource available to you.  By registering, you can write letters that will be delivered for free!  (Yay, no postage!)  But what I think is the best part of all, is that because the Philippines Tacloban mission uses a pouch service, you can send letters to me in the Philippines and its STILL free!

I bought a lot of EFY (Especially for Youth) songs earlier today because that's the only music I'm going to be listening to for 18 months besides the hymns, and I figure that I'll want as much of a variety as possible.  However, it's not like music will be playing 24/7, so just having something playing will be nice.

I was set apart as a missionary today at 5 o'clock.  It was really nice to have my family with me, and to hear the advice of my stake president.  One thing that he said was that junior companions have a responsibility to always support and give strength to their senior companion.  I had never really thought about it before, but it sounded like a very solid piece of advice.  I plan to adhere to it when I can.

I am a tad nervous about tomorrow, but most of that comes because I'm not sure what I'm going to be doing the first day.  Once I get the schedule down, it'll probably be easier to digest.

Farewell for now.  The next installment will be soon I hope. :)

I am a LDS sister missionary serving in the Philippines Tacloban area. I made this blog so that I may share my experiences with my friends and loved ones and anyone who may need to hear my story. My sister will be updating this blog with letters that I'll be writing home.